


one in a million

by unafortwo



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: F/F, Imaginary Friends to lovers maybe, One Shot, Soulmate AU, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-17 04:47:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21048542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unafortwo/pseuds/unafortwo
Summary: one with chaeyoung and mina have imaginary friends.





	one in a million

“_You can brush her hair, ok? Just don’t do that hairstyle again, Mina.”_

The soft voice came from behind the door, catching the attention from Chaeyoung’s mother. She frowned, a smile of fascination in her lips. Her daughter was a quiet kid, she didn’t interact with many kids in her school and she didn’t like collective plays, so hearing her voice sounding so confident left her with curious ears. Who her daughter was talking with?

The woman opened the door slowly, peeping her little girl playing with her dolls. She was talking like there was someone else in the room, and their conversation sounded pretty serious. Chaeyoung was holding one of her dolls and giving a lecture to the other one tossed on the corner.

Her mother smiles warmly.

“She looks weird with these bangs. I don’t like it.” Chaeyoung made a face, the one she always did when her mother offered her peas. There is a pause in the conversation and Chaeyoung smiles shyly after it. “No, Mina, I like _your_ bangs. They are cute!”

“Chaeyoungie?” Her mother softly called, opening the door. She looked around, making sure her daughter was alone indeed. The girl looked up; her silky black hair tied in pigtails. “Playing with your dolls, huh?”

Chaeyoung nods, her dimple appearing as she opens a toothless smile. “Yes, mommy. I am teaching Mina how to do pigtails.”

The woman nodded, kneeling beside the little girl. “Is Mina learning? You sounded so rough with her.”

The girl sighed heavily, like she was dealing with a big issue there. “Well…” she looked over the corner of her room where the doll was leaned against the wall. “She is, but she says she likes ponytails better. I told her only _she_ looks good in them. Right, mommy?”

Her mother then turned to the doll Chaeyoung was talking about. It’s a ragdoll Chaeyoung received as gift from her grandmother. However, it did not have bangs or ponytail. She frowns, smiling at her girl. “I don’t know, baby. She isn’t wearing any of those. Why don’t you show me?”

Chaeyoung blinked her large eyes, looking deeply confused. “Yes, she is, mommy. Look!”

She points to the corner of the room.

The woman frowns again, following her girl’s look. “No, darling. Look, her hair is all down.” The woman got up and walked over the doll, catching it from the floor. “But we can give her pigtails.”

“Okay, mommy, but Mina is going to help us. Right, Mina?” Chaeyoung looked over her mother as speaking, still looking at the corner of the room.

“Baby…” her mother turns her body around. “Who is Mina again?”

“Mina, mommy! My best friend Mina!” Chaeyoung put down the doll she was holding, getting up and signaling to the corner of her room again.

“This doll?” She lifts the doll she is holding again.

“Don’t be silly, mommy. This is Mina’s doll now and she wants it back.”

Her mother’s heart skip a bit. The room is empty except for Chaeyoung’s toys and furniture. A normal child bedroom, with only _one_ child in it. She crossed her arms in front of her body, looking very serious to the girl. Maybe her Chaeyoung was one of those kids with imaginary friends. But still, the girl sounded so sure about this Mina that she has to take a look inside the closet too after giving the doll to the imaginary kid.

_Nothing_. That was a relief, the woman hates to admit.

“Chaeyoungie, why don’t you say goodbye to Mina now, hum? It’s bath time.”

Chaeyoung looks ready to give her mother an answer, but instead she glances the corner again and nods, following her mother. Before the woman shut off the lights, she gives the room another careful look, a trail of goosebumps forming in the back of her neck.

_2 years later_

“Chaeyoungie, let’s go! You’re going to be late for school!” Her mother called from downstairs.

Chaeyoung drops her pencil in a halt.

She blinks not once, but several times, oblivious to her surroundings. She looks around, recognizing her bedroom, then looks down to her clothes – she is already dressed for school. Over her desk is her scrapbook and a fresh drawing in the previous blank page.

She does not remember anything, except the urge to draw.

“_The same thing, again” _she sighs, examining the image in front of her. The same pair of eyes is staring at her, the same mole over the bridge of her nose, lips parted – she always has her upper lip slightly bigger than her lower. “_Mina”_, Chaeyoung traces the drawing with shaky fingers.

Mina’s face is everywhere. In the sheets of paper inside of her backpack, in the corner of the pages of her notebooks, in three scrapbooks packed with drawings of her imaginary friend. Mina when she was a child, Mina was she was a teen, Mina _now_ with her 15 years old. Chaeyoung shut her eyes. How the hell she knows how Mina looks like now, if it’s been years since the last time she had visualized Mina? If someone asks Chaeyoung who Mina is, she does not know how to answer it, how could she say she still has an imaginary friend?

Mina is only inside her head – and dripping from it through her fingers and pencils.

Chaeyoung is feeling tired already, even before the day starts. She collects her notebooks and her scrapbook, grabbing her backpack in her way out of the bedroom.

She runs downstairs with her arms full of things, bumping onto her mother when she reaches the last step. Everything that was in Chaeyoung’s arms is now spilled over the floor – Mina’s face is everywhere, for her horror.

“Chaeyoungie, be careful!” Her mother slaps her softly on the arm and starts to collect the sheets of paper from the floor, until she comes to a stop. “Chaeyoung. What is this?”

Chaeyoung bites her lip. Her mother is holding three of her drawings, each one containing a different side of Mina. She is unsure about telling her mother about Mina or not. It’s been years since the last time she dared to speak Mina’s name in front of her mother. The woman used to react badly to it. But Chaeyoung decides for the truth. If she must be honest, not even she knows what Mina is doing in her mind during all this time, and her mother could help her with the issue.

“So?” Her mother insists, her hands on her hips.

“I-it’s Mina, mom.”

“Mina?” Her mother lows her eyes slowly. So many years without hearing that name, yet it has the same effect. “Your imaginary friend Mina?”

“She is not imaginary!” Chaeyoung spats, taking the drawings from her mother’s hand and starting to catch the ones that fell on the floor.

“Not imaginary? Darling, there is no Mina… Please, don’t start with this again.”

Chaeyoung feels her cheeks on fire. Why her mother has to be so rude about it? It’s not her fault. Yet, the woman insists to call Mina imaginary when Chaeyoung feels her very real in her dreams and thoughts. She still remembers Mina when they were nothing but children – a little girl from Japan, with bangs and short hair. But her mother was never able to see Mina, so she decided to treat her daughter like a lunatic.

“Mom, I know you don’t believe me, but, please…”

“I am tired of this subject, Chaeyoung. I think it’s time for you to see a psychiatrist. I’m going to call Dr. Park right now.”

“What? No, mom! I don’t need a doctor, I’m okay. You just have to trust me.”

“This is not okay, Chaeng” her mother sighs. She has a look of pity in her eyes. “_Who is this Mina?”_

Chaeyoung shrugs. She does not have that answer as well.

_5 years later_

The cherry blossoms are covering the ground, air and all the green surfaces of the campus college. Their scent is fresh and revitalizing, the firsts signs of a new season coming ahead.

Mina takes a deep breath and now her chest is light. She takes her time walking around the campus. She was always so busy inside her classes and library she barely had a free time to really enjoy that space, although she spent all her days in college.

On her hands is a brochure of the university’s Arts Department exposition. Mina was not a girl that would be link to artsy things. She was an engineering student, after all. But since her roommate was so passionate about that event, Mina decided to give it a chance.

Dahyun, her roommate, was a nice girl that lived with her head into a rainbow and unicorn’s world, and Mina would do anything to make her happy, since Dahyun was a happy pill herself. “You need to go, Mina! Please! I will never ask you anything again, but you have to go!” Dahyun had shaken Mina’s shoulder nonstop.

“Why? I thought you were not good with canvas” Mina said uninterested, munching her cereal as she read her notes.

“Oh, I am not, I am awful, indeed. But there is this girl… well, she is very good at it, and you have to see it for yourself” Dahyun stuttered with her monolid eyes so open that was scary.

Mina sighed, lowering the papers, and looked at Dahyun with bored eyes. “Please, don’t tell me you are setting me up with somebody.”

Dahyun giggled nervously. “Believe me, _I_ am not the one doing it.”

At the end, Mina agreed with Dahyun. Now the engineering student was starting to feel grateful towards her friend for bringing her out of the library on such nice day.

Mina makes her way to the Arts Department main building that would hold the exhibition. Dahyun was waiting for her in the middle of the crowd. There was some sort of dance show happening in front of the main building, and people were gathered around the dancers forming a big circle.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Mina frowns towards the loud crowd.

“Oh, it’s _Momo_” Dahyun whispers with dreamy eyes. “She’s about to start.”

“Oh, _that_ Momo?” Mina shots up her brows, suddenly interested. Dahyun talked a lot about the dance major student before.

Her roommate scowls. “Hey, hey. I saw her first. Now, it’s time for you to check that exhibition, alright?”

“What’s the hurry?”

“You’ll see. Here, your ticket, I got it with the organization staff, don’t need to thank me.”

“Wait, people actually pay for this thing?”

“Mina” Dahyun rolls her eyes, shoving the ticket onto Mina’s hands. “Just go, okay?”

Before Mina answering, Dahyun gave her back and ran towards a girl dressed all in silver, who Mina guesses is Momo. She shrugs, going inside the main building with her ticked in hands.

Once she is in, Mina follows the flow of people inside the building. Everybody is dressed so alternatively that she immediately feels out of place – but not enough to receive so many stares. _Weirdos_, she thinks. _Is wearing jeans and a simple t-shirt so overwhelming for them?_

At some point, Mina looks down to her own body, looking for some stain on her shirt. _Nothing._ But they kept staring at her, at every single room of the exhibition.

_Is this a Dahyun prank?_, she thinks once again. Mina reaches the last level of the exhibition – a whole floor dedicated for the most prestigious student. She stops outside the space reserved to the artist, reading the information board.

_Son C., 21 years old, born in Seoul. _Mina runs her eyes over the text, not understanding a thing about the artist's techniques.

Mina enters the wide room. For her surprise, its walls are large windows that gave an amazing view of the campus. The paintings – large canvas, higher than Mina herself – hang from the ceiling from steel cables, forming a maze. They’re all made of lilac and pink tons, looking similar to the cherry blossoms that cover the campus right now.

Mina feels the energy switchs immediately.

The sunlight from the windows, that beautiful pastel tons of spring, the fresh air that entered from the open doors that lead to the rooftop. Everything flows different in that place.

_So this is what Dahyun wanted me to see?_, she walks deep into the exhibition, but stops at the first piece of art.

It’s mainly a blank canvas, except for a pair of eyes in the middle of it. They are sharp and honest, like they belonged to someone very blunt. Their irises were from different tons of purple – like a storm, swirling inside those circles, hypnotizing who was watching it. Something tells Mina she has already seen it – at least those eyes.

_Infinite_, she reads the name in the tag. _Inspire by those eyes that hold the universe_.

“Beautiful” Mina whispers to herself, moving to the next painting.

It’s another white piece. There are some small dots spread over it. Mina takes a step forward to look at it better. Those were not simple dots – they are small gems, looking more like brilliants, stuck to the canvas. “_What…?”_ Mina feels her breath getting stuck in her throat. Contouring those small dots, are thin grey lines. It’s a face, without mouth and eyes, but a face still. The dots, Mina notices, look like moles. Unconsciously, her hand covers her face, tracing her own moles sprinkled on her skin. “_Angel’s kisses”_ she reads the tag.

Angel’s kisses. That’s how Mina’s grandmother called the innumerous moles on her face when she was a kid.

“This is not right” her eyes get wide.

What she sees next piece, the ground seems to shake beneath her feet.

Mina is looking at herself. Herself made in water painting, stained in pink, lilac and blue. Her turbulent eyes, her moles are bright white points, her mouth is plump and its pink color drips down over her chin and down her neck. Her hair is floating around her face, like she is in the middle of a windstorm, but her painted version has bangs.

She takes hurried steps towards the painting, surpassing the security line drawn on the floor. “_Mina."_

_Her very own name on the tag._

“Miss, excuse me, you cannot pass the line…” the voice sounds very distant from Mina now.

“W-wait… wait” she mumbles, still not able to divert her eyes. “I need to talk to the artist, d-do you know where I can find him?”

“You mean _her_?” the girl says with a gentle smile. “Chaeyoung is outside, on the rooftop.”

“Chaeyoung?” Mina spats back. Her heart skips two beats. “Did-d you s-say Chaeyoung?”

“Hum, yes? God, you look so pale! Is everything alright?” The girl mentions to grab Mina’s arm with a worried look but stops. “Wait… are you…?” She looks at the painting behind Mina, realization sinking in her brain.

“I need to see _Chaeyoung._”

While the girl leads Mina towards the rooftop, her head is spinning. Everything seems so confusing, yet so clear to Mina right now.

Chaeyoung. _Chaeyoung. Chaeyoungie…_ The same name of her childhood friend – well, _imaginary_ friend, the one her parents took out of her head by heavy and never-ending therapy sessions. _Could she be Chaeyoungie?_ If she was not Chaeyoungie, how come this strange girl painted Mina?

She does not know how she got outside, but when she comes to herself again Mina is standing under the sun. The girl that took her – Jihyo, if Mina is not mistaken – is already gone. However, another girl is staring at her, on the balcony.

Mina feels the urge to cry filling her chest.

The Chaeyoung she once knew was a small girl, with a toothless smile and dimples. She was always in pigtails, telling Mina ponytails were lame. How many times Mina asked her mother to do her hair in pigtails because Chaeyoungie like it? She lost count.

The Chaeyoung in front of her is already a woman. But her dimple is there. She still has her slick black hair, now with a bob cut. She is different, but deep-down Mina knows she is the same.

“Chaeyoungie?” she takes the first step towards the girl.

“_Mina?_”


End file.
